The Color Red
by Katalinagrey
Summary: Jack allows a moment of vulnerability as he watches Kate staring at the sunset.


**The Color Red**

Disclaimer: LOST is owned by Damon Lindelof, J.J Abrams, Bad Robot Productions, and ABC: basically everybody with the pretty money.

Author's Note: My first LOST fanfic, so expect some crappiness.

Summary: Jack reflects on his fears and his love for Kate as he watches a haunting sunset.

_An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel._

**-William Shakespeare**

Kate. You, alone on the beach, watching the sunset. How many times have you done this, Kate? How many nights you spent an hour on the beach, just admiring the sky?

I would have never pegged you as the sky-watching type. I would never have thought you would lie on the grass and watch the sky, maybe trying to find horses in the clouds. The sky is purple with red clouds now. What do you see, Kate, in those red clouds? Do you see the blood of the US marshal, or the man whom you once loved?

Maybe you don't even think about red as blood. Maybe you don't see the wisp of a blood-red cloud as the hand that wrapped around your throat in a fever-induced rage. Maybe you don't see a red puff and see the face of your lover that you killed.

If you can't see red as blood, I envy you. But I love you.

If you can see red as blood, I still love you.

I see blood almost everyday of my life. I see red spurting from nose, a nose that belong to a boy I couldn't saved. A boy who mercilessly was beaten. A boy who was my age, and I still couldn't save him. He received a red nose, I got a purple eye. Maybe if I was strong enough . . .

Doesn't matter now. Maybe the boy I tried to save is fine now.

Even so, I still see blood after that. I see blood on my hands, my rubber hands, so I can save the person bleeding. I saved my wife, long ago. She called it "being fixed".

Fixed. I didn't fix her, I saved her!

The thing is . . . I can see you are the one who needs saving. I can see it so clearly the moment I saw you. You looked lost, rubbing your wrists . . . oh, right, those cuffs. Funny how something so small seemed so significant now. Actually, looking back on it, I wasn't completely preoccupied with the pain at my back, at the red at my back. I was noting how lost and confused and shocked you were, how you were rubbing those wrists, and thinking, 'Maybe my wound can save her from her shock'.

I'm doctor. Emotional wounds are to be considered as you sealed up the gaping wound. It just so happened that you were healing emotionally as you were healing me physically.

One, two, three, four, five. I wonder if you count those words when you are scared and have no where to run to. I haven't. Why bother running in a deserted island?

The sky is turning dark now. Bright blood red turns to a dark, murky color in these clouds, the purple sky darken to a black blue.

If you don't see blood in red then what do you see, Kate?

I wonder. I know there are more things red in this world other than blood, but there is a lot of blood. Red is most common color on this planet, Kate. Did you know that? Red is so common we take it for granted . . . then become frighten when it finally spills. Even though I see the red in blood, even though you might not . . . is it possible, then, that you won't be disgusted when I say, "When I see red, I see blood?"

But then, you are a fugitive. You have killed before. So you might understand. But even you kill as I save, is it possible for the opposite? I kill as you save?

Kate, can you save me when that time comes? Oh, god, the Others, I know, there is a battle coming down between us and Them, and I might have to take a gun and pull the trigger as one come rushing toward me.

Oh, god, Kate.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it is not Kate's emotional wounds that needs to heal.

It's me.

I hear of stories from my patients, from novels, from television shows that somebody has an angel or a demon as a companion. My patients would touch my arm and would whisper "You are an angel." My wife's—my EX-wife's— favorite show was _Touched by an Angel_. She cried at every episode. I never did.

I never had an angel with me. I had my father. He brought out the best and the worst in me, but god, the demon inside of him won't let him let go of his drinking. That's what killed him and what ended me on this island, with Locke, Sawyer, Desmond, The Others . . .

You.

Maybe he wasn't all bad. Maybe he wasn't a demon at all—but rather an angel in the disguise of a drunk. Or maybe he was a demon that just happens to make good things happen for all the cruel reasons.

Wait. What am I thinking? Angels? Demons? Oh well. I'll resign to thinking this way, just this once.

But Kate, before I go off track, is it possible that you will save me? Not saving me from pain, or from death, but from losing myself? Can you please be my angel? Can you save me as I saved my wife? Can you miraculously save me?

The sky is no longer red, nor purple. It is black and the stars arrived. You and I can't see the clouds anymore, it is so dark. The wind is cool, and I can see you shiver. I shivered too.

You turn around and saw me standing. And you smiled the smile I grew to enjoy, to love.

You came up to me. Your feet sink slightly in the sand. You crossed your arms, still shivering.

"Hey," you say.

"Hi." I have to reply.

"What going on at the Hatch?"

"In an hour it'll be my shift."

"Wanna get a bite to eat?"

"Why? Know a McDonald's around here?"

"Very funny. I'm craving macaroni."

"I'm not particularly hungry, but I'll eat with you anyway."

"Okay."

We walked in the jungle, to the hatch. I want to ask her so much. I want to ask her . . .

"Kate?"

She turned to me, still walking. The torch she holds gave more light to her eyes, her smile.

"Yeah?"

"That was a pretty sunset. Filled of reds and purples." Liar.

"I would have never pegged you as a sky-watcher."

Ha-ha. Irony.

"Kate?"

". . . yes?"

"When you see the color red, what do you see?"

You stop walking and look at me, a look of puzzlement on your face. "Red?" She repeated, slowly, as though you never thought of red.

I nod, fearing for the worst.

You frown, thoughtfully, I noted. Your eyes point at the ground, rolling left and right in thought.

"Red is . . . I mean, what I think of red . . . I see cardinals. The birds, I mean. I had one as a pet, sort of. It was injured and I healed it and I let go, but I sort of considered it as my pet. I felt sad it had to leave. But at least I saved it."

If you can save the bird that had the color of blood on it, then maybe, just maybe you can save me. And I can watch red clouds and not think of the blood of those saved and those I couldn't save. If the time comes, then I can look up at these blood-red skies and think not of those Others I will inevitably kill.

I don't believe in God. I don't believe in heaven or hell, or even angels or demons. I don't know why I compared my father to a demon, or you to an angel.

I know I can't ask you to save me. I wish could, but I can't. But at least I know, by you remembering the cardinal that you will. Because you are an angel, Kate, you are the closest thing to what I would never believe in. You are a liar too, but in ways I forgive you on that. Even angels fall time to time, according to my Bible-reading mother. I don't know about my father anymore. Just . . . don't know anymore.

But at least he felt saved by me.

I hope you felt saved by me.

I hope you still feel saved by me.

I hope you will save me when the time comes.

As we walked down the familiar path to the Hatch, I can feel you studying me from the corner of your eye, as though you're considering my odd, very un-Jack-like question.

I couldn't help myself but smile.

And you, bless you, didn't say anything. I think you know. I hope so. Maybe tomorrow, we can watch the sunset together. But this time I won't be bothered by blood-red clouds anymore.

I know blood is not the only thing red in this world.


End file.
